Almost every business has it’s own email list, which is one of it’s most valuable assets.  But an important question to ask regarding your business is how effect is your email list?  Over the years, marketers have had to get very creative to engage their audience enough to get them to submit their email addresses.  To build your email list, use the below ideas:

1. Provide information: users like receiving relevant articles, to do lists, effective tips, and useful resources that will help enhance their knowledge.
2. Interactive tools: everyone needs an easy to access calculator or template, why not be the one to provide it?  Before you know it, users will come to you for additional resources.
3. Deals: With the economy on it’s way to recovery, many users are still looking for deals.  Offer exclusive deals only to your email subscribers.

After you engage a user long enough to collect their email address, send them constant and relevant information and newsletters.  Before you know it, the user will have build a relationship with your business.

How can small businesses ensure their website will be on the first page of Google?  Most believe they must line the pockets of the search engines to receive this top placement but this is not so.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a combination of many factors including how old the website domain is, how many individuals are visiting your website, how many contexual links your website has, and how relevant is the information your website has to offer.

To get started:

1. Track your metrics: use free tools such as Google Analytics to establish benchmarks you want your website to achieve.
2. Determine keywords: decide which keywords you want search engines to rank your website for.  Include keywords and phrases you want associated with your brand
3. Create Content: Once you have decided your keyword set, new content must be created on an almost daily basis that incorporates contexual links for those keywords.

Top placement on any search engine requires a sustained effort and will not yield instant gratification but given time, and SEO strategy will become the most important component of your marketing strategy.

BuyTradeBiz.com, internet’s best new entrant in the business for sale and franchise for sale online listing service, continued to increase in traffic to its site.  The site broke through the 70,000 mark for US sites in Alexa within 9 months of launch of the site.  In addition the number of unique and repeat visitors continues to grow rapidly.

The number of franchise opportunities and business opportunities that are listed on the site continues to increase daily.  The number of brokers that have listed with site has been increasing steadily.  This shows the effectiveness of the company’s very active marketing campaigns.  In January 2010, we attended the Franchise Expo South show in Miami, Florida for the first time and received a lot of recognition from the franchise community.

Early this year, we started to roll out a new marketing campaign that helped increase our presence within social media and continually increase our search engine ranking.  We have introduced a Winter Promotional Offer where franchisors can register and renew their memberhips and receive a three month promotional membership period.  During the three months franchisors are not charged for any leads that are generated and receive all the benefits associated with their membership levels.  This is a great way for the franchisors to test visibility to their posted franchises for sale and look for potential feedback on entrepreneurs looking to buy a franchise or franchises.  Also, franchisors have the option to choose from three different membership levels which include benefits such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing search engine exposure, customized web brochures, and online tracking of views and responses to name a few.

“The sites increased marketing efforts are being noticed within the franchise community.  We have noticed the increase in number of views and inquiries of our franchises for sale listings we have posted on this site”, says a leading franchisor.  In additional, franchisors appreciate the sites clean design and highly navigable interfaces.  “With our organic search results increasing everyday, it is helping us drive more buyer traffice to the site.  We have also increased our marketing efforts to help generate additional traffic”, said Sweta Shah, Marketing Director for BuyTradeBiz.com

BuyTradeBiz.com is internet’s newest businesses for sale and franchise for sale listing website.  Designed using the latest Web 2.0 concepts buyers and sellers are increasingly adopting the site as their favorite platform to buy a business and sell a business.  Privately held BuyTradeBiz.com, was founded by veterans of the software industry, to create a new paradigm for the business marketplace.

Trademarks are a powerful resource that allows customers to recognize your brand and it is worth protecting.  If used properly and consistently, trademarks can be your franchise’s most important asset.

1. Place your trademark on all your products, in reference to the services your franchise provides, and your franchise website.
2. Use the necessary symbols to distinguish your registered trademarks.  The ® symbol should only be used with federally registered marks.  The ™ symbol should be used with trademarks (marks that relate to products) that are not federally registered.  The SM symbol should be used with service marks (marks that relate only to services) that are not federally registered.
3. Be consistent by using your trademark every time.

Next time you are considering buying new collateral when listing your franchise for sale, be sure to leverage the power of your brand’s trademark.

Have you ever heard the cliche that a picture is worth a thousand words?  Online, that picture may be worth quite a bit more because of two interesting facts that most small businesses never consider when promoting their products or services online.

Google presents something called blended search results, which means they show images and videos alongside thext links for ANY search conducted through their site.  It is much easier to get an image to the first page of Google that it is to get any kind of text link or website.

If you consider both of these facts, along with the obvious fact that photos can tell a story about your business in a way that even the best written marketing language cannot, it should come as no surprise that having images as part of our web marketing of your business is quickly becoming imperative.

• Re-title your files: rename your image files to something meaningful like “business_for_sale.jpg.”  An image title that uses keywords is the first to optimize your images online.
• Add an image gallery:  The benefit of having these images directly on your website, is that they are linked to your main URL and this is beneficial from a search point of view.  The other positive is that you can link to share with anyone.  The other search tip for these images is that you should be sure to add “alt text” which is the text added in the code behind your image so that you describe it for those who cannon see it for any reason.  Search engines also read this text to understand what the image is of.
• Promote the images: you will want to try and share your images anyplace your business has an online profile.

Many small businesses have completely ignored online images area of marketing that could have a huge impact on their bottom line.

The nearby search option on Google allows users to filter their search results based on a geographic location that they can set instead of appending location names directly to their search.  For example, many users have grown accustomed to performing searches like [business for sale New York] or [California franchise] in order to receive local results.  Now they don’t have to.  Instead, searchers will be able to refine their search by their default location or a custom one by using the search options panel that appears on the left hand sidebar.  Be sure to ensure that Google knows where your business is located.  That means getting the proper local citations, making sure your local business listing is accurate and that you localize your web content by using a complete address.

The integrate real time search option puts live news, tweets, and blog posts directly into the search results and gave small business owners yet another reason to be proactive about monitoring their online reputation.  Well, last week Google added another prominent source to pull content from and display in its real-time search results; Facebook.  While Google won’t be pulling information from your individual profile it will publish official updates from Facebook Fan Pages, profiles generally created for celebrities, major brands and of course, local businesses.  If you haven’t created a Facebook Fan page for your business, now is the time to do it.  Google is pulling this information into the search results and using it when someone searches for you.  Use this to your advantage.  Make sure you’re sending out valuable information and that you’re also letting them find a profile that is well-build and user-friendly

With more than 400 million users and increasing everyday, Facebook.com is one of the most powerful social media platforms around.  Facebook advertising platform is very similar to Google Ad sense; it displays ads on the right side of the screen allowing users to find out more information regarding the company/product.  There are a few more advantages to advertising on FAcebook, such as:

1. Target: The ad can be targeted towards the audience by gender, education, relationship status, workplace, and keywords.
2. Engage:  If you are promoting a page of event, Facebook will add the “Become a fan” or “RSVP to this event” button on the ad, therefor the users don’t have to leave their current page to engage with you.
3. Budget: Ads are shown based on cost per click model or cost per thousand model (pay per 1,000 ad views).  Depending on your ad the CPM model might work better for you.

Social media is evolving everyday, why not take advantage of it when you can and list your business for sale?

Bad customers are costing you more than you realize.  You already know that some customers are less profitable and more difficult to serve than others.  Accepting lower margins on some accounts and making higher margins on others seems reasonable, especially if your sales are slow. If your business has limitless resources and you have unlimited patience, then you can afford this overall profitable mix of good and bad customers.

Here are some types of bad customers to get read of:

1. Slow-paying customers:  These customers consistently pay late and only after a series of follow-ups calls
2. Customers with constantly-changing and ever-expanding needs:  These folks have full-service expectations with limited-service budgets, and are typically the bane of service firms.
3. Price-sensitive, demanding customers:  You offered incentives to these customers to attract new business and hope to nurture their accounts to targeted levels of profitability.  Or you accepted lower prices because you were convinced that these customers would require fewer resources or accept no-frills product lines.  Instead, these customers resisted standard pricing and insisted on high service levels and numerous product features.
4. Conniving Customers:  These customers seem to have legitimate complaints but they misrepresent problems to extract restitution in the form of full refunds or heavy discounts.

Holding onto a bad customer prevents you from serving the good ones.  Therefore cut your losses early.

We are looking for authors and we want you to submit an article that will be featured on the BuyTradeBiz Resource Page or on the BuyTradeBiz Blog.  Share you knowledge with over 3,000 business brokers and be recognized by your peers.  By having your article published on BuyTradeBiz you will generate great exposure for you and your company.  Click here to submit your article today!

Can You Get a Top Price for Your Business In a Down Economy?

You didn’t get to be the owner of a successful private company by following the crowd.  You instinctively found opportunities to prosper within every crisis you faced.  Now, you are considering selling your company to perhaps, spend more time on Cape Cod or restoring that ’55 T-Bird that’s been collecting dust in the back of the shop for years now.  But, with the economy in the shape it is, doubtless best to put any plans of selling on hold for awhile until things turn around. Right or wrong?

Good News
Our experience selling businesses more than 2,000 businesses over almost thirty years through the best and worst of times is that private companies’ valuation methods do not change during a recession. In fact, a down economy might be the best time to sell a good company!

Here are some of the reasons why:

• Savvy individual and corporate acquirers understand that the best way to grow is through acquisition of profitable companies that will help their core business prosper.  They realize they must take advantage of an opportunity when it’s available or risk losing it altogether.
• Fewer profitable companies are on the market in poor economic times primarily because business owners who, under normal conditions, would be selling their businesses are deferring a sale because conventional wisdom dictates that “you can’t get a good price in a down market.”
• Serious buyers are constantly in search of quality acquisition opportunities.  The number of Main Street and middle market business buyers increase as more and more people are laid off and/or outsourced.
• You can get tomorrow’s price today for your business if you choose a buyer who recognizes the opportunity your business represents and considers expectations of future profitability when assessing value.

In order to obtain an optimum price for a business, regardless of the economic condition, one must attract the type buyer who will recognize the opportunity the business represents.  In real estate, optimum value is determined by the entity that will recognize highest and best use of a property.  Business prices typically reflect an acquirer’s perception of future earnings under their ownership. Therefore, the optimum value of a business is determined by the buyer who recognizes the most opportunity the business represents.  A business can be considered worthless to one yet be worth millions to another.

How to Identify Your Ideal Acquirer

There is no substitute for real world experience when it comes to differentiating between buyer types and determining how various issues surrounding your business and industry will impact their perception of value.  Public companies call upon their Investment Banker to obtain the pre sale intelligence required to make informed decisions.  Private companies can call upon their Business Intermediary to obtain the same kind of information.  The first step is to engage a Business Intermediary (Broker) who is familiar with the marketplace for your size and type business.  This professional will employ a two step approach to the process i.e.:

Step One – Provide you with:

• An overview of marketplace dynamics, a description of the different buyers, how they think and how their thinking impacts the value of your company.
• A summary of what buyers can be predicted to pay for your business,
• A list of recommendations both long and short term to enhance and increase your company’s value – in other words, be sure that a satisfactory outcome is obtainable before you bind yourself to a contract to sell.

Step Two – Once satisfied that you can obtain your price, even in a down economy, you authorize marketing efforts to begin.

• Marketing and Due Diligence materials are created and assembled
• Advertising and other marketing strategies are implemented to attract your ideal candidate
• You will know everything of importance about your candidate before they know your company’s identity
• Your business is sold at your price, typically with three or less exposures

In Summary:

Business pricing methods remain unchanged even in a down economy; fewer profitable companies are on the market, the number of serious buyers in the marketplace increases in a down economy, savvy business owner’s know Only the Right Buyer will pay the Right Price and; you should not attempt to sell unless you are sure you can get your price no matter what the economy.

Author: Theodore P. Burbank, FIBBA, CBI